Two Thomas Carr College students have gone to great lengths to raise money for young people living with cancer.
Year 11 student Mary-Jo Saliba and year 9 student Laura Mallia joined forces to raise money for annual National Bandanna Day, run by Canteen, in honour of Mary-Jo’s brother James, who died in March this year from osteosarcoma.
Mary-Jo was also diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2011 after losing the vision in her left eye. She has spent the past two weeks selling bandannas and said Canteen had helped her greatly when she was sick.
The 17-year-old got the all-clear after undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, and now has MRIs every three months to check that the cancer has not returned.
“I made friends who really understood what I was going through, and that really helped me,” she said.
Laura, who was in the same year level as James, braved a lunchtime crowd on Friday and publicly chopped off 30 centimetres of her locks, which she will donate to the Australia Alopecia Areata Association Foundation, an organisation that supports people who lose their hair due to oncological treatments.
Laura, whose hair went all the way down to her lower back, said it would take some getting used to her new shoulder-length look.
“I like to give back to people less fortunate than us,” she said.
The total raised between the two girls was still being tallied when
Star Weekly went to print.
